This invention relates to lotteries and, more particularly, to a multi-jurisdictional progressive fast play lottery game and associated methods of conducting such lottery games.
Lotteries have existed in various forms throughout the world for hundreds of years. Typical modern lottery formats often involve the selection by a customer or entrant of a pre-determined quantity of lottery numbers (e.g., from a range of numbers) such as by writing such numbers down on a paper form which is submitted to a store clerk. Once the lottery ticket is paid for, such numbers are then entered into a machine which prints, on a second piece of paper, a lottery ticket which is issued to the lottery customer. Lottery winners in such conventional lotteries are eventually chosen by a lottery administrator which—via one or more conventional methods—draws or randomly selects winning numbers which an entrant must have selected, and thereby have a paper ticket with numbers matching the winning numbers, to win the lottery prize. If the paper lottery ticket is lost, the contestant—even if he or she were a winner—would be unable to collect his/her prize. Because the contestant is able to choose whatever numbers he or she desires in such lotteries, multiple winners are possible which necessitates prize sharing. Conversely, because there is no guarantee that the numbers drawn will precisely match any set of numbers chosen by a lottery contestant, a given lottery draw may result in no winner at all.
In a popular second type of lottery format, paper tickets are sold to lottery customers which are a scratch-off type or a variety of so-called instant win tickets. With such a lottery ticket, often the ticket is predetermined as either a winner or a loser and the customer discovers the “result” of the ticket by scratching or rubbing off an opaque film which conceals whether the ticket is a winning or losing ticket. Because of the simplicity of their design and implementation, there are often a large variety of scratch-off lottery ticket types which compete with one another.
As most conventional lottery types employ paper tickets, not only does the printing of massive numbers of throw away tickets have an environmental impact, but it also requires substantial financial expenditure by the lottery provider to design, print, store, and ship the tickets to large numbers of geographically distant locations.
The popularity of lotteries in recent years has declined despite the social benefits such as providing entertainment and sources for civic funding of schools and other institutions. The decline is possibly due to a lack of excitement or enthusiasm associated with conventional lotteries. In this regard, the public has arguably become sensitized to the conventional lottery formats and therefore does not participate in such lotteries as frequently.
Therefore, needs exist in the lottery industry including, for example, a need for new lottery game types which elicit greater participation by lottery contestants. As other examples, there is a need for lottery (or game) types with reduced environmental impact and/or which are less expensive and cumbersome to administer. However, barriers exist for new types of lottery games. State lotteries are offered on a large scale, and are operated using centralized transaction processing systems to collect and/or redeem wagers. Most state lotteries and similar entities operate their own central host system, or have it operated by a contractor. The host systems are typically located within the jurisdiction of the lottery provider. The state lotteries also deploy their own client equipment to operate various channels for delivering games to player customers, such as agent-operated lottery game sales terminals, unattended lottery game sales terminals, vending machines, kiosks, electronic access via the Internet from personal computers, mobile phone access, and interactive TV terminal access, etc. They also operate, or have operated on their behalf by a contractor, their own customized administration systems, such as accounting, reporting, fraud control, prize redemption systems, etc.
Deploying new games on state lottery systems or in other gaming operations typically requires significant custom programming and the rollout of new features in all the various customized administration systems. This can take large amounts of time and resources. When a lottery has a successful new game, other lotteries want to emulate the game, which then requires additional custom work.
Generally, when the same game is offered in multiple jurisdictions, each jurisdiction has its own implementation (often with variations to the business rules or play style). Even for multi-jurisdictional games like Powerball®, each participating jurisdiction has its own instance of the game and the process of determining winners for the shared jackpot is done separately in each jurisdiction—often with “low tech” exchange of data like fax or email for winning numbers, share values, etc.
Another aspect of existing lottery games is the approach by which the lottery authority replenishes the pool of available lottery numbers or selections after each lottery ticket is purchased. As discussed in U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2014/0235313, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety, instant games are pre-determined games of chance. In other words, the outcome is determined at the point of purchase and typically revealed in the form of an interactive, animated sequence. None of the player's decisions or actions has any impact on the outcome of the game. Electronic instant tickets can be distributed just like traditional paper-based instant tickets, where a pool of tickets is created and one-by-one that pool is diminished (i.e., a “dynamic” grid). Alternatively, and based purely on statistical odds, a pool of tickets is created and there are no changes to the pool as tickets are sold (i.e., a “static” grid). Dynamic grids include, for example, top tier replenishment, top tier replacement, and grid sell-out replacement. In any case, a random number generator (RNG) determines the outcome according to the probabilities defined for the game.
Lottery operators often publish the player's odds of winning such an instant lottery game. Once the pool of instant game tickets is initially established, the odds of winning are likewise set. However, as players purchase tickets from the pool, the odds of subsequent players winning may not be the same as those initially set because an inordinate number of winning, or losing, tickets may be randomly sold during the earlier stages of the ticket sales for that particular game. Therefore, the percentage of winning tickets remaining in the pool after prior ticket sales may be different, higher or lower, than those set by the lottery authority. This is particularly true in a static grid approach as discussed above.
In a multi-jurisdictional setting, the individual jurisdictions currently implement their own specific approaches to the replenishment of the pool of tickets in games which apply to the multi-jurisdictional game thereby making the odds of an individual playing in one jurisdiction likely different from the odds of another player in a different jurisdiction even though both players are seeking the same jackpot.
In view of the above-enumerated drawbacks and/or needs or desires for improvements in the lottery industry, one purpose of the herein described invention is to address one or more of such drawbacks and/or desires as well as, or in the alternative, other needs which will become more apparent to the skilled artisan based on this disclosure.